Cuyahoga River's best sights are the ones you see at water level (gallery)

Forget those cushy tour boat cruises. To really see and experience the Cuyahoga River, you have to get out and row it.

That's right. If your goal is to bond with Cleveland, to tap the source of its energy, you need to navigate the waterway under your own steam, from the low-profile perspective of a scull.

It's not as crazy, or as difficult, as it sounds. Jump on board with the Cleveland Rowing Foundation and leaders there will take care of everything from supplying a boat to teaching you how to operate it.

They might even take you for a guided row, if you ask nicely. All I did, in fact, was call, and before I knew it, I was out on the water, sharing a double scull with Brad Whitehead, a member of Western Reserve Rowing Association. Rowing advocate Russ Eckles supervised from a launch boat.

Eckles, as it happens, was the one who taught me how to row in the first place, when I dabbled in the sport for my weekly fitness column, "Stretching Out." It was he who met me at the group's Rivergate Park boathouse and exposed me to what I've since concluded is one of the finest forms of exercise in existence.

But my mission here was to be a rowing Huck Finn, to view my hometown from a vantage I and indeed most locals rarely take time to enjoy.

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Contrary to popular conception, rowing is not about the upper body. No need to resemble the Winklevoss twins. Done properly, it actually demands more from your legs, in the form of pushing. Pulling ranks as more of a secondary motion.

Neither is there any real risk of capsizing. Only if you're seriously cooking and happen to lose control of an oar is there a chance of falling out. I actually made several fairly significant mistakes during my trip with Whitehead and still stayed totally dry. Had I fallen, I would have had the boat itself, made of carbon fiber, to keep me afloat.

And no, the water wasn't gross. U.S. Rowing wouldn't have selected the Cuyahoga for its Masters Head Race National Championship in September if it were. I'm not saying I would drink from it, but over several miles, the only offensive smell I detected was from my own sweat. The worst sight was of some litter, bobbing gently.

Rowing does require finesse, however. If you're new to the activity, you'll need time to master the art of rotating oars with your wrists, lowering both oars into the water simultaneously, and completing a full, clean stroke while exerting enough lateral force to keep the oars in position.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. You'll figure it out. I did, and I'm about as uncoordinated as they come.

Besides, speed and efficiency aren't priorities. Go too fast and you'll miss out on the beauty, surprises, drama and mystery our crooked river has to offer.

Actual people are scarce in the Flats these days. But evidence of them abounds. Within moments of departing a spot near Columbus Road on the east bank, heading north, I'd seen countless displays of graffiti, everything from rude pictures and innocent jabs at enemy crew teams to masterful abstractions.

Again and again I marveled at the motivation of the artists behind them, those who sneak down at night just to make an anonymous picture or slogan on a wall few people see. What's the nature of that urge, and where does it come from?

Nonhuman life is also plentiful. Reeds lining the banks were a common sight, as were seagulls soaring en masse. I even spotted a cat or two, nosing delicately around the shoreline.

In many locations, nature has taken over completely. All sorts of buildings that once thrived as restaurants, nightclubs and boathouses are being actively reclaimed by plants and grass, like something out of "I Am Legend."

Which again raises questions in my mind. Having just spent months searching for a new home and seeing house after house desperately in need of renovation, the sight of so many decaying structures makes me wonder anew how many buildings around Northeast Ohio actually will receive care. Seems to me the amount of work to be done exceeds the manpower, will and money we have to do it.

Or maybe everyone's just working on the bridges, the second most stunning scene visible from a boat in the Flats. (The first scene being that of an ore carrier bearing down, forcing you to sprint to the edge.)

Viewed from the water, from underneath, the bridges are spectacular, each a unique personality with its own profile, identity and history. To think, avid rowers enjoy this show every time they go out.

The sheer magnificence of the larger spans -- Carnegie, Superior and the Inner Belt -- was overwhelming. Never again will I drive over them without paying my respects. And yet I preferred the intimacy of the shorter, lower and more intricately engineered bridges, where we saw and heard cars and trains rumbling overhead.

Even the new bridge, under construction, had something to say. At this point, it looks more like the remnants of a bridge than an actual structure, but the activity at its foundation was heartening nonetheless, the sign of a bustling future. Likewise for the new office and residential complex rising near the lake.

Not everything is so rosy, of course. To view the Flats and the river running through it as some sort of quaint retreat would be Pollyannaish, a supreme feat of Cleveland-loving delusion.

Faster rowers easily can reach and spend their time in the river's prettier, southern sections, where industry yields to greenery. Up where I stayed, though, I passed pile after pile of ore and vast tracts of empty, overgrown land. In these places, it's hard not to see lamentable wastes of real estate. No offense to our shipping companies.

But this just adds to the value of rowing the Cuyahoga. Not only is rowing great exercise, but in Cleveland, I now see, getting out on the water is a small way to help reinvigorate the region, to inject life into the Flats.

The region we all inhabit wouldn't be here if it weren't for the river. We owe it to ourselves and to Cleveland to at least get acquainted.

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